Mardi Gras and the Taronga Zoo

It has been an exciting weekend so far so let's start from the beginning...

Saturday : Mardi Gras
Each year, Sydney has a parade during Mardi Gras. A huge (parents reading to small children may wish to be wary here) Gay/Lesbian Pride Parade. Millions of people come from across the world to view it, including at least 90% of all study abroad students that I know so far. It was a fantastic time. There were over 130 groups in the parade. It took up an entire street in downtown Sydney. There were lots of colors, lots of people and lots of things that I really don't think I'll need to see again any time soon. Overall, it was a fantastic day and experience being down there.

Sunday (Day) : Taronga Zoo
The Taronga Zoo is maybe the most famous of the zoo's in Sydney. In order to get there, you need to trek up to Sydney Harbor, right near the Sydney Harbor Bridge (creative naming) and the Sydney Opera House. Then, you take a ferry out to an island which contains the zoo. The zoo has about 2,600 animals from the stats that I've read. I took over 160 photos on Saturday alone (some of which are posted below). The zoo itself isn't large when you go by acres though (less than half the size of the Detroit Zoo). However, the animals there were awesome. To name a few that I saw : Lions, Elephants, Binturong, Chimps, Crocodile, Fennex Fox, Giraffe, Kangaroo, Meerkat, Orang-utan (yes, that is in fact how they spell orangatang), Hippo, Red Panda, Seal, Penguins, Tasmanian Devil, Tigers, Tree Kangaroos, Wombat, Zebra. There were also a lot of different birds and reptilia but those I could not in fact remember by name... It was a whole day affair (about 10 AM to 5 PM) going to the zoo but it was so worth it. It's easily been one of the most enjoyable things I've done while in Sydney. The views of Sydney Harbor from the zoo are fantastic and the animals are all really close (ex: a few of the less dangerous roosters had managed to escape their pen and the snow leopards were frantically running around their cage going crazy trying to get to them).

Sunday (Night) : The World's Largest Projection Screen
Later that night I went to see Watchmen with a few folks. We saw it at the Darling Harbor IMAX, which has the largest screen. At first I was in awe at how absolutely huge the screen was (about 20% the size of a football field). My second, and more prominent thought was that the seats were REALLY close for such a large screen and that we needed to sit in the very back of the 20 or so rows. Even sitting all the way in the back, it was almost impossible to get all the screen in one view. The movie was fairly good though, I have to admit. I think non-US people would have a few problems with it since the movie re-writes history a little bit (not as a spoiler since they have no meaning on the plot but electing Richard Nixon for a 3rd term and the US winning in Vietnam to name a few). I would recommend it, but it seems more like a movie to rent than in a theater.

Monday : Class Begins
Monday signalled the end of my extended vacation. I've had 2 classes so far, neither of my computer science classes. They seem easy enough, which is good since that's what I was hoping for. Stats reminds me of a fusion of chemistry and calculus but without the chemicals... You just need to know a formula and apply it to some data, and the formulas are almost all calculus based (with some Set and Summation notation). My movie class seems like a lot of fun and we're watching a few ones that I know are supposed to be good (eg: Vertigo, Chinatown and Alien). For the first class we watched Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing which was pretty good and fairly easy for a first lesson.

So, that's it for this post. Enjoy the pictures below :)



The Opera House


Sydney Harbor (the tall building on the left is the Sky Tower, the Opera House is on the right)


Meerkats... They're so cute :)


Elephants are quite large and in charge


The Harbor/Opera House from the zoo


One comfy monkey


Ya know... Two giraffes, one zebra and oh yea, the Sky Tower


Koala :) He looks like he needs a cuddle buddy


A wallaby, basically a small kangaroo


A kangaroo... Basically a big wallaby


The Sydney Harbor Bridge